Part of what we teachers must provide are experiences of sociality and
publicity in which students do not understand themselves as customers. Education should challenge what students have grown accustomed to, not
least their sense that they themselves are never more than customers. That teachers resist being reduced to service-providers is an indispensable part of this work. This resistance can take many forms (and I admit I try to engage in all of these myself): explicit elaboration whenever possible in lectures and discussions, throwing wrenches in ongoing administrative efforts at quantification and standardization, defiance of grade-inflation and infotainment spectacles for students who demand "their money's worth," and so on. Schools must be places in which other forms of value than competitive
utility and profitability are given play in the world, where
provocation, improvisation, serendipity, mediation, strange desires
help diverse communities build practical and imaginative convivialities together and so open up promising futures for us all.
> Part of what we teachers must provide are experiences of
ReplyDelete> sociality and publicity in which students do not understand
> themselves as customers.
And without, hopefully, being subject to threats of extortion. :-(
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2015/12/19/speaking-of-coddled-white-guys/
---------------
(quoting an ancient post)
PZ Myers
May 15, 2010
. . . I won't meet privately with students either -- I always
keep my office door wide open, and when I'm working with students
in the lab, I find excuses to move out and let them work on their
own if it turns into a one-on-one event. I just can't afford the
risk.
I was also subject to accusations of harassment, once upon a time.
A female student came into my lab when I was alone, unhappy about
an exam grade, and openly threatened me -- by going public with a
story about a completely nonexistent sexual encounter right there.
Zoom, I was right out the door at that instant; asked a female grad
student in the lab next door to sit with the student for a bit,
and went straight to the chair of the department to explain the situation.
I had to work fast, because I knew that if it turned into a
he-said-she-said story, it wouldn't matter that she was lying, it
could get dragged out into an investigation that would easily destroy
my career, no matter that I was innocent.
I was in a total panic, knowing full well how damaging that kind of
accusation can be. Fortunately, I'd done the right thing by blowing
it all wide open at the first hint of a threat, and getting
witnesses on the spot.
====
Apropos the "panopticon" -- I predict that one day, in the not
too distant future, it won't be just the police wearing
"body cams". It'll be everybody. **Parents**, even,
**spouses**.
Who wouldn't want to watch the bowel movements of the one-percent?
ReplyDelete> Who wouldn't want to watch the bowel movements of the one-percent?
ReplyDeleteOh, nobody'll **watch** 'em. They'll just be archived
by your insurance company. :-(
In a world with a racist war on drugs and for-profit insurance/healthcare quantification is a technique of neoliberal precarization. But it is worth noting that in a world without a racist war on drugs and in which free quality healthcare was guaranteed to all, it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to monitor and track bowel movements to get early warnings of health problems and make nutritional recommendations. This suggests to me that the libertarian/individualist surveillance framing of these issues may be less helpful than it seems, and that our focus should be ending racist/puritanical/BigPharma Drug War carceral prohibition and nationalizing insurance/healthcare provision as a public good.
ReplyDelete> . . . it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to
ReplyDelete> monitor and track bowel movements to get early warnings
> of health problems. . .
Oh, I didn't mean **health** insurance. I meant **liability**
insurance!
I was reacting to the awfulness of being a teacher (or a college
professor, or a day-care center worker) in a world where you have
to be constantly on your guard lest you be accused of improprieties
with your students or charges. Of course, the same is true
for doctors or dentists or hairdressers. But being a college professor
seems to be a particularly prickly thing these days. Maybe my
paranoia is being hyped by the media here. But of course all it takes,
as Myers mentioned, is one accusation.
That isn't to suggest, of course, that there aren't all-too-genuine
instances of improprieties.
Hm, that reminds me of something. Did you ever catch that TV series from
10 years ago, _Jack & Bobby_?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_%26_Bobby
I caught it all on YouTube this past summer. Christine Lahti (the mom)
is a college professor, and one of the plot lines has to do with the
fact that she's having an affair with a grad student who is both her
teaching assistant and thesis advisee. **Very** messy. Especially as
he is, as it turns out, not particularly academically talented **or**
ethical (just really cute). There was one particularly famous episode
of that show where the older brother's best friend comes out as gay (and admits
he's in love with him, thus destroying the friendship) and then commits
suicide. The gimmick (if that's the right word) of the whole show was that
the younger of the two brothers (named after the Kennedy brothers by
their uber-liberal single mom) eventually becomes president of the US
(ca. 2050 or so), and there are flash-forwards to people being interviewed
about "President McCallister's" personal history.
My experience of the academy doesn't square very well with the poor harassed straight white male instructors menaced by lurking predatory females eager to hurl charges of sexual misconduct narrative I must say -- very much to the contrary.
ReplyDelete> . . .poor harassed straight white male instructors menaced
ReplyDelete> by lurking predatory females eager to hurl charges of
> sexual misconduct narrative. . .
Well, of course, Myers (of all people) would repudiate that narrative
as well, as indeed he does in the 2015 commentary on the 2010 post
(thrown in his face by MRAs, apparently).
Nevertheless, it's clear that the possibility is something he has to
think about and take steps to guard against.
My ex-roommate, who is a (gay) film studies professor,
while he has never AFAIK been threatened with extortion, has
nevertheless been faced with pretty extreme pressure to change grades,
including threats to complain to the college administration.)
Anyone can be accused of anything. And there **are** psychopaths,
of whatever race, sex, gender, sexual orientation or social class,
willing to make accusations, no matter what the damage, if they can
thereby further their own ends. If the opportunity arises, if the
planets line up just right.
Rape culture on college campuses seems to me a bigger story.
ReplyDelete